Engine question for Jake and Charles

[mikefocke]

They are going to a different demographic that early Porsches.

Those very early cars either rusted out or stayed in the family. They weren't looked at as "gee, I can drive a Porsche for $8k kinda cars". And the people that kept them had the money to maintain them or parked them in a barn. And there was no Internet. The Porsche clubs were small and news traveled slowly.

There were few dealers and even fewer mechanics. And the dealers were dealing with one type of car/engine, not the air cooled, VW-engined, SUV, 8-cyl, turbo, smog-treated, etc. they have to know about today.

And the factory was focused, not stretched to provide a car for every niche.

Plus the economy was very different and, if you couldn't afford the rebuild now, you aspired to next year.

So get people stretching to buy a 4th owner first few years of production Boxster and you are going to have reports of problems. Both from design and age and use and lack of proper maintenance. Does the guy who paid $8k take it to the local shade tree or to a mechanic who really knows the cars but charges more for the knowledge, parts, tool expense, etc.

The emphasis was on engineering the car, not financial engineering.

Think what could have been done on reliability updates if the money hadn't been funding some big-shots grand scheme to inflate his sense of self worth by taking over a mega corporation.

Yes it was a different world.